Psychological Sense of Community: A New Construct for the Field of Management

This article introduces a new construct to the field of management called Psychological Sense of Community (PSOC). This is important because management scholars are calling for the creation of communities in organizations in an environment that lacks appropriate construct development. The aims of this article are threefold: (a) develop a working definition of PSOC via a review of the extant literature on PSOC from other disciplines with the goal of translating it into the domain of management, (b) synthesize findings from parallel literatures on the outcomes of PSOC with an eye toward exploring the relevance of such outcomes in management contexts, and (c) assess the value of PSOC as it relates to its uniqueness in relation to other prominent management constructs and its scope of applicability in a variety of management inquiry areas.

A Test of Absolute Numerousness Judgments in Lion-Tailed Macaques (Macaca Silenus)

Numerous studies have shown that animals have a sense of quantity and can distinguish between relative amounts. The concepts of relative numerousness, estimation, and subitizing are well established in species as diverse as chimpanzees and salamanders. Mobile animals have practical use for an understanding of number in common situations such as predation, mating, and competition. However, the ability to identify discrete quantities has only been firmly established in humans. The purpose of this study was to test for such “absolute numerousness” judgments in three lion-tailed macaques (Macaca silenus), a non-human primate. The three macaques tested had previously been trained on a computerized matchto- sample (MTS) task using geometric shapes. In this study, they were introduced to a MTS task containing a numerical cue, which required the monkeys to match stimuli containing either one or two items for rewards. If monkeys were successful at the initial matching task, they were tested with stimuli in which the position of the items and then the surface area of the items was controlled. If the monkeys could match successfully without using these non-numerical cues, they would demonstrate the capability to make absolute numerousness judgments. None of the monkeys matched successfully using the numerical cue, so no evidence of absolute numerosity was found. Each macaque progressed through the experiment in an individualized manner, attempting a variety of strategies to obtain rewards. These included side preferences and an alternating-side strategy that were unrelated to the numerical cues in the stimuli. When it became clear that the monkeys were not matching based on a stimulus-based cue, they were tested again on matching geometric shapes. All three macaques stopped using their alternate strategies and were able to match shapes successfully, demonstrating that they were still capable of completing the matching task. The data suggest that the monkeys could not transfer this ability to the numerical stimuli. This indicates that the macaques lack a sense of exact quantity, or that they could not recognize the numerical cues in the stimuli as being relevant to the task.

The effects of aging and musical experience on the representation of tonal hierarchies

Two experiments explored the representation of the tonal hierarchy in Western music among older (aged 60 to 80) and younger (aged 15 to 22) musicians and nonmusicians. A probe tone technique was used: 4 notes from the major triad were presented, followed by 1 note chosen from the 12 notes of the chromatic scale. Whereas musicians had a better sense of the tonal hierarchy than nonmusicians, older adults were no worse than younger adults in differentiating the notes according to musical principles. However, older adults were more prone than younger adults to classify the notes by frequency proximity (pitch height) when proximity was made more salient, as were nonmusicians compared with musicians. With notes having ambiguous pitch height, pitch height effects disappeared among older adults but not nonmusicians. Older adults seem to have internalized tonal structure, but they sometimes fail to inhibit less musically relevant information.

The Politics of Purchasing Power: Feminist Tourism and Women's Development in Nepal

My purpose in this essay is to explore how ideas about women and development are created and circulated at the moment of consumption of wares produced at a women's development project in Nepal. I analyze the project as an example of the ways that women's development is an object of material and discursive consumption. Artifacts produced and sold by Nepali women, and purchased by tourists from the "first world," become part of an international exchange of power, money, and meaning. Based on a survey of consumers and ethnographic observations, I conclude that feminist tourists forge relations with disempowered "Others" through the pleasurable activity of an alienated market transaction. Consumers of crafts produced at a women's development project assume a position of empowerment and enlightenment, ready to help out their "women" counterparts through their support of an enterprise with circular logic: within the industry of development (although not necessarily for feminist tourists themselves), at least one of the central projects of development is the development project itself. At the same time, feminist tourists locate themselves outside the oppressive structures and ideologies affecting their "third-world sisters." This is a relation of sympathy and imagined empathy, with no sense of differential location within systems of oppression. They fail to examine or articulate the global link between their own purchasing power and local living conditions of Maithil women; the connection is effectively built out of the discourse.

Stability of Art Preference in Frontotemporal Dementia

We examined aesthetic preference for reproductions of paintings among frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients, in two sessions separated by 2 weeks. The artworks were in three different styles: representational, quasirepresentational, and abstract. Stability of preference for the paintings was equivalent to that shown by a matched group of Alzheimer's disease patients and a group of healthy controls drawn from an earlier study. We expected that preference for representational art would be affected by disruptions in language processes in the FTD group. However, this was not the case and the FTD patients, despite severe language processing deficits, performed similarly across all three art styles. These data show that FTD patients maintain a sense of aesthetic appraisal despite cognitive impairment and should be amenable to therapies and enrichment activities involving art.

Institutional Identity and Anticipatory Socialization: a Qualitative Analysis of Multi-Campus University Websites

A document analysis of institutional websites was conducted to infer the extent to which affiliated campuses are integrated with one another within multi-campus university systems. The factors that contribute to either a common or differentiated sense of institutional identity, as expressed in the campuses’ individual web presences, were a primary focus of the investigation. This study then sought to determine the effect that institutional identity has on the anticipatory socialization of students who relocate from branch campuses to their parent institutions. Once an analysis of the findings had been conducted, recommendations for further research in this area were made.

Greek Life and God Attachment: the Interaction of Sorority Influence and Religiosity on Women's Body Shame

The present study investigated the relationships between sorority women’s internalization of Greek thin ideals and body image, and dimensions of sorority women’s religiosity and body image. A combined relationship among sorority women’s internalization of Greek thin ideals, body image, and religiosity was also examined. Based on previous research it was expected that women’s internalization of Greek thin ideals would be associated with worse body image (in terms of body shame, body esteem, and drive for thinness) and that women’s religiosity (in terms of secure attachment to God) would be associated with better body image. Combinations of Greek thin ideal internalization and God attachment were expected to significantly predict changes in women’s body image. Women completed a series of survey measures assessing their awareness and internalization of Greek sociocultural thin ideals and their sense of community within their particular sorority. Women also completed a series of survey measures assessing their body shame, body esteem, and drive for thinness, in addition to survey measures assessing dimensions of their religiosity. The study’s findings revealed that women’s internalization of Greek thin ideals was associated with worse body image outcomes and that anxious attachment to God was associated with worse body image outcomes, particularly in relation to body shame. Moderation analyses revealed that Greek thin ideal internalization significantly interacted with anxious God attachment to predict body shame.

Must We Forgive?: Exploring the Limits and Possibilities of Forgiveness and Resentment

Conflict has marked civilization from Biblical times to the present day. Each of us, with our different and competing interests, and our desires to pursue those interests, have over time wronged another person. Not surprisingly then, forgiveness is a concern of individuals and groups¿communities, countries, religious groups, races¿yet it is a complex idea that philosophers, theologians, political scientists, and psychologists have grappled with. Some have argued that forgiveness is a therapeutic means for overcoming guilt, pain, and anger. Forgiveness is often portrayed as a coping mechanism¿how often we hear the phrase, ¿forgive and forget,¿ as an arrangement to help two parties surmount the complications of disagreement. But forgiveness is not simply a modus vivendi; the ability to forgive and conversely to ask for forgiveness, is counted as an admirable trait and virtue. This essay will explore the nature of forgiveness, which in Christian dogma is often posited as an unqualified virtue. The secular world has appropriated the Christian notion of forgiveness as such a virtue¿but are there instances wherein offering forgiveness is morally inappropriate or dangerous? I will consider the situations in which forgiveness, understood in this essay as the overcoming of resentment, may not be a virtue¿when perhaps maintaining resentment is as virtuous, if not more virtuous, than forgiving. I will explain the various ethical frameworks involved in understanding forgiveness as a virtue, and the relationship between them. I will argue that within Divine Command Theory forgiveness is a virtue¿and thus morally right¿because God commands it. This ethical system has established forgiveness as unconditional, an idea which has been adopted into popular culture. With virtue ethics in mind, which holds virtues to be those traits which benefit the person who possesses them, contributing to the good life, I will argue unqualified forgiveness is not always a virtue, as it will not always benefit the victim. Because there is no way to avoid wrongdoing, humans are confronted with the question of forgiveness with every indiscretion. Its limits, its possibilities, its relationship to one¿s character¿forgiveness is a concern of all people at some time if for no other reason than the plain fact that the past cannot be undone. I will be evaluating the idea of forgiveness as a virtue, in contrast to its counterpart, resentment. How can forgiveness be a response to evil, a way to renounce resentment, and a means of creating a positive self-narrative? And what happens when a sense of moral responsibility is impossible to reconcile with the Christian (and now, secularized imperative of) forgiveness? Is it ever not virtuous to forgive? In an attempt to answer that question I will argue that there are indeed times when forgiveness is not a virtue, specifically: when forgiveness compromises one¿s own self-respect; when it is not compatible with respect for the moral community; and when the offender is unapologetic. The kind of offense I have in mind is a dehumanizing one, one that intends to diminish another person¿s worth or humanity. These are moral injuries, to which I will argue resentment is a better response than forgiveness when the three qualifications cannot be met.

Bacchus and Civic Order: The Culture of Drink in Early Modern Germany / Bacchus und die bürgerliche Ordnung. Die Kultur des Trinkens im frühneuzeitlichen Augsburg

Lining the streets inside the city's gates, clustered in its center, and thinly scattered among its back quarters were Augsburg's taverns and drinking rooms. These institutions ranged from the poorly lit rooms of backstreet wine sellers to the elaborate marble halls frequented by society's most privileged members. Urban drinking rooms provided more than food, drink, and lodging for their guests. They also conferred upon their visitors a sense of social identity commensurate with their status. Like all German cities, Augsburg during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had a history shaped by the political events attending the Reformation, the post-Reformation, and the Thirty Years' War; its social and political character was also reflected and supported by its public and private drinking rooms. In Bacchus and Civic Order: The Culture of Drink in Early Modern Germany, Ann Tlusty examines the social and cultural functions served by drinking and tavern life in Germany between 1500 and 1700, and challenges existing theories about urban identity, sociability, and power. Through her reconstruction of the social history of Augsburg, from beggars to council members, Tlusty also sheds light on such diverse topics as social ritual, gender and household relations, medical practice, and the concerns of civic leaders with public health and poverty. Drunkenness, dueling, and other forms of tavern comportment that may appear "disorderly" to us today turn out to be the inevitable, even desirable result of a society functioning according to its own rules.